Red Beard
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Year Released: 1965
Rating: 2.0
Young, arrogant doctor comes to title character's humble clinic to practice medicine, only to butt heads with the elder over conformity (he refuses to wear a doctor's outfit) and compassion (he could care less about the ill). After seeing countless acts of suffering and surgery, he breaks down. What should be the refined work of a major artist plays out like a soap opera - there is no short supply of weeping women or dying men - and what might have made a potent two-hour movie becomes intolerable at three. Unintentionally comical highlight: Toshiro Mifune breaking the bones of some assailants, only to examine them shortly thereafter, verbally reprimanding himself for not being 'careful enough' in dealing with them.
